Nationalizing Nature · 2021. 1. 14. · 1930 s, Brazil and Argentina created some of their rst national parks around the massive Iguazu Falls, shared by the two countries. The parks

Cambridge University Press978-1-108-84483-3 — Nationalizing NatureFrederico Freitas FrontmatterMore Information

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Nationalizing Nature

Today, one-quarter of all the land in Latin America is set apart for natureprotection. InNationalizingNature, Frederico Freitas uncovers the crucialrole played by conservation in the region’s territorial development byexploring how Brazil and Argentina used national parks to nationalizeborderlands. In the 1930s, Brazil and Argentina created some of their firstnational parks around the massive Iguazu Falls, shared by the twocountries. The parks were designed as tools to attract migrants fromtheir densely populated Atlantic seaboards to a sparsely inhabitedborderland. In the 1970s, a change in paradigm led the military regimesin Brazil and Argentina to violently evict settlers from their national parks,highlighting the complicated relationship between authoritarianism andconservation in the Southern Cone. By tracking almost one hundred yearsof national park history in LatinAmerica’s largest countries,NationalizingNature shows how conservation policy promoted national programs offrontier development and border control.

Frederico Freitas is an assistant professor of Digital and Latin AmericanHistory and a core member of the Visual Narrative Initiative at NorthCarolina State University. He is the coeditor of Big Water: The Makingof the Borderlands between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay and arecipient of an NEH fellowship.

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cambridge latin american studies

General EditorsKRIS LANE, Tulane University

MATTHEW RESTALL, Pennsylvania State University

Editor EmeritusHERBERT S. KLEIN

Gouverneur Morris Emeritus Professor of History, Columbia University and HooverResearch Fellow, Stanford University

Other Books in the Series121. Islanders and Empire: Smuggling and Political Defiance in Hispaniola,

1580–1690, Juan José Ponce-Vázquez120. Our Time Is Now: Race and Modernity in Postcolonial Guatemala,

Julie Gibbings119. The Sexual Question: A History of Prostitution in Peru, 1850s–1950s,

Paulo Drinot118. A Silver River in a Silver World: Dutch Trade in the Rio de la Plata,

1648–1678, David Freeman117. Laboring for the State: Women, Family, and Work in Revolutionary

Cuba, 1959–1971, Rachel Hynson116. Violence and the Caste War of Yucatán, Wolfgang Gabbert115. For Christ and Country: Militant Catholic Youth in Post-Revolutionary

Mexico, Robert Weis114. The Mexican Mission: Indigenous Reconstruction and Mendicant

Enterprise in New Spain, 1521–1600, Ryan Dominic Crewe113. Corruption and Justice in Colonial Mexico, 1650–1755, Christoph

Rosenmüller112. Blacks of the Land: Indian Slavery, Settler Society, and the Portuguese

Colonial Enterprise in South America, Weinstein/Woodard/Montiero111. The Street Is Ours: Community, the Car, and the Nature of Public Space

in Rio de Janeiro, Shawn William Miller110. Laywomen and the Making of Colonial Catholicism in New Spain,

1630–1790, Jessica L. Delgado109. Urban Slavery in Colonial Mexico: Puebla de los Ángeles, 1531–1706,

Pablo Miguel Sierra Silva

(Continued after the Index)


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Nationalizing Nature

Iguazu Falls and National Parksat the Brazil–Argentina Border

FREDERICO FREITAS

North Carolina State University


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www.cambridge.orgInformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108844833

doi: 10.1017/9781108953733

© Frederico Freitas 2021

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exceptionand to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,no reproduction of any part may take place without the written

permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2021

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.

isbn 978-1-108-84483-3 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy ofURLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publicationand does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,

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To Olívia and Aurora


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Contents

List of Figures, Maps, and Tables page viii

Acknowledgments x

Note on Terminology and Orthography xiv

Introduction: Boundaries of Nature 1

1 Nationalizing the Border 23

2 Playing Catch-Up 59

3 A Park and a Town 97

4 Land Conflict 145

5 Surveillance and Evasion 194

6 The View from Above 239

Epilogue: The Resilience of Boundaries 279

Bibliography and Sources 286

Index 308

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Figures, Maps, and Tables

figures

0.1 Iguazu Falls, as seen from Brazil page 21.1 Plan for a national park on the Argentine bank of Iguazu

Falls by Charles Thays, 1902 28

1.2 Plan for a national park on the Argentine bank of the IguazuFalls by Charles Thays, 1911 31

2.1 Plan for a national park on the Brazilian bank of IguazuFalls by Edmundo de Barros, 1897 65

2.2 Land concessions and ports on the Paraná River, 1919 71

2.3 Budget and visitors in the Brazilian National Parks 90

3.1 Iguazú National Park Hospital, 1947 105

3.2 Proposed national parks and Argentine phytogeography 117

3.3 News of the death of a jaguar in Iguazú National Park, 1962 139

4.1 “Routes of the National Park Committee,” c. 1966 157

4.2 Expropriated estates in Iguaçu National Park, 1973 175

6.1 Colonization projects and towns in western Paraná 262

6.2 Frame 13349, possible locations of Guarani communities insideIguaçu NP, Brazil, 1953 271

6.3 Iguaçu National Park borders 274

maps

0.1 Iguazú National Park, Argentina, and Iguaçu National Park,Brazil, c. 2020 xvi

1.1 Iguazú National Park, Argentina, and Iguaçu National Park,Brazil, in 1941 45

2.1 Most common routes to Foz do Iguaçu before the 1930s 68

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2.2 Iguaçu National Park expansion, 1939–44 92

2.3 Territory of Iguaçu, 1943–46 93

3.1 Planning of Puerto Iguazú, c. 1950 109

3.2 Change in IguazúNational Park boundaries, c. 1950–80 131

3.3 Dwellings around Iguazu Falls, c. 1960 136

4.1 Iguaçu National Park, Paraná, Brazil, c. 1970 147

4.2 Iguaçu National Park, Settled Area c. 1975–80 158

5.1 Fauna violations at Iguazú National Park (AR),1960–74 235

5.2 Fauna violations at Iguazú National Park (AR),1975–80 236

6.1 Land cover at Iguaçu National Park, 1953 242




6.5 Iguaçu National Park, c. 1980 258

tables

1.1 Guests at the Iguazú Hotel 34

1.2 Investment in national parks, 1935–42 48

1.3 Investment in national parks by population and area,1935–42 50

1.4 DPN’s revenue share, 1935–42 55

3.1 Survey on the population of the recreational zone, IguazúNational Park, 1961 138

3.2 Residents in Iguazú National Park, inside the protected area,1958–62 141

4.1 Comparison between censuses 171

6.1 Colonization projects along the BR-277 260

6.2 Population growth in western and southwestern Paraná (BR)and Misiones (AR) 266

6.3 Area (km2) covered by native forests in the state of Paraná,Brazil, 1930–79 267

List of Figures, Maps, and Tables ix


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Acknowledgments

Throughout the years, several organizations generously supported theresearch for and writing of this book. Research in Brazil was fundedthrough the Graduate Research Opportunity Funds from the School ofHumanities and Sciences at Stanford University and the Albert J. BeveridgeGrant from the American Historical Association. Research in Argentina wasmade possiblewith the support of theCenter for Spatial andTextual Analysisat Stanford and the John D. Wirth Fund at the Department of History atStanford. The writing was supported by the Geballe Dissertation PrizeFellowship at the Stanford Humanities Center, the Department of Historyat North Carolina State University, and a National Endowment for theHumanities Fellowship.

This book is the result both of my personal effort and of the support ofmany individuals who offered me advice and friendship over the lastdecade. My highest debt is to my three mentors at Stanford University:Zephyr Frank, Richard White, and Mikael Wolfe. It is hard to find theproper words to acknowledge Zephyr for his guidance and exceptionalgenerosity. Zephyr always played the right role at the right times: rigorousmentor, exceptional colleague, and true friend. Richard White was crucialin my development as a historian, offering precious advice on distillingchapters into their essential arguments and situating the research in thebroader themes of environmental history. I am also indebted to MikaelWolfe for his guidance and interest in my professional development.

I benefited from comments and suggestions from many colleagues whoread different chapters of this book: Ryan Edwards, José AugustoDrummond, Richard W. Slatta, Mi Gyung Kim, and K. Steven Vincent.My special thanks go to Jacob Blanc, not only for offering insightful

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comments on rural Brazil but also for our friendship and partnership indifferent academic endeavors. I am also extremely grateful to those whoprovided feedback on the entire manuscript: my friend Andrea Rosenbergand the two readers selected by Cambridge University Press. Gratefulthanks also go to the editors at Cambridge, who guided this bookthrough the review, editing, and publication processes: Kris E. Lane,Matthew Restall, and Cecelia Cancellaro.Throughout the years, numerous other people contributed to this project

through conversations and feedback. I am grateful to colleagues and facultyI met during my time at Stanford, including J. P. Daughton, Ana Minian,Jon Connolly, Gabriel Lee, Rodrigo Pizarro, Victoria Saramago, GeorgePhillip LeBourdais, Dylan J. Montanari, David Gilbert, Lena Tahmassian,AndrewGerhart, Leonardo Barleta, andMateo Carrillo. At Stanford, I hadthe privilege to engage with digital humanities researchers at the SpatialHistory Project and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA):Matt Bryant, Celena Allen, Jake Coolidge, Nicholas Bauch, Ryan Heuser,Jason Heppler, and Maria dos Santos. I especially thank Erik Steiner forbeing an inspirational digital humanities scholar and a friend. I amparticularly indebted to research assistants Eli Berg and Peter Salazar,who worked on some of the data used in Chapters 5 and 6.At North Carolina State University, I found a welcoming interdisciplinary

community of scholars. I am very grateful for the support I received frommycolleagues here, includingMatthew Booker, Todd Berreth, Arnav Jhala, ErinSills, Daniel Burton-Rose, Adriana de Souza e Silva, Ross Bassett, AliciaMcGill, Katherine Mellen Charron, David Ambaras, Megan Cherry,Xiaolin Duan, Sandy Freitag, Tammy Gordon, Nicholas Robins, AkramKhater, Verena Kasper-Marienberg, and David Zonderman. Thanks alsogo to Courtney Hamilton, Ingrid Hoffius, and Norene Miller, for theirdedication and professionalism to faculty and students. Research in thisbook benefited from a partnership with the Program in GeospatialInformation Science and Technology at NC State. Special thanks go to EricMoney and Juliana Quist, at the program, as well as Emily McNamar, whoworked on some of the data used in Chapter 6. Within the greater NorthCarolina community of scholars, I am grateful to a few people for theopportunity to present on aspects of this book: John French, ChristineFolch, and everybody else at Duke University’s Global Brazil Lab; CynthiaRadding at UNC-ChapelHill; and Jürgen Buchenau andOscar de la Torre atUNC-Charlotte.Numerous other colleagues have helped shape my scholarship in many

ways throughcommentaryon thisbook, guidance to sources, collaboration in

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panels, publications, and research projects, or conversations about historyand methodology. In the United States, I would like to thank Emily Wakild,Thomas D. Rogers, Seth Garfield, Rafael Ioris, Myrna Santiago, ChristopherBoyer, Matthew Vitz, Paul Katz, María de los Ángeles Picone, DaryleWilliams, Zeb Tortorici, Patrick Iber, and especially Matt Spurlock for theirsupport and friendship. InEcuador,NicolásCuvi. InColombia,ClaudiaLeal.In Argentina, Graciela Silvestri and Marina Miraglia. In Paraguay, CarlosGómez Florentin. In Brazil, I am grateful to Luciano Figueiredo, AntonioMyskiw, Douglas Libby, Junia Furtado, Regina Horta Duarte, Yuri Gama,Martha Rebelatto, Sigrid Andersen, José Augusto Pádua, José Luiz deAndrade Franco, Lise Sedrez, Eunice Nodari, Sandro Dutra e Silva, LuisFerla, Marcela Kropf, Eduardo Góes Neves, Gabriela Pellegrino Soares, IrisKantor, Lincoln Secco, Carla Viviane Paulino, Leonardo Marques, andDaniel Strum. Special thanks go to my longtime friends outside academia,especially Ruy Fernando Cavalheiro, Tagori Mazzoni Vilela, André deMartini, André Mesquita, Lucas Monteiro de Oliveira, Daniela e FelipeMadureira, Luiz Menezes, Pedro Arcanjo Matos, Pedro Carvalho,Alexandre Fanucchi, Luciano Juliatto, Paulo Sérgio Sangiorgio Jr., andTarcísio de Arantes Leite.

Many assisted me in my research in Brazil and Argentina. In Rio deJaneiro, thanks to Paulo Roberto Boechat at the CENDOC-Aeronáuticaand Rosane Coutinho at the Arquivo Nacional. Special thanks go toTereza Cristina Alves for helping me find my way in the maze of theBrazilian National Archives. Several people helped me in Curitiba,including Solange de Oliveira Rocha at the Arquivo Público do Paraná;Célia Carneiro at the DER-PR; Luiz Augusto Loyola Macedo at the IBGEoffice in Curitiba; Ronilson Campos, Rodrigo Asturian, and FábioPagliosa Ulkowski at the INCRA office in Curitiba; Arnaldo Alves deS. Junior at the Justiça Federal do Paraná; Gislene Lessa and Izaias AlvesPereira at the ITCG-PR; and Mauricio Savi. In Foz do Iguaçu, I want tothank Lara Luciana Leal Seixas, Aluízio Palmar, Lígia Basso, AlexandrePalmar, Adilson Borges, Pedro Berg, and Adilson Simão for their help inthis project.My research at the IguaçuNational Parkwould not have beenpossible without the assistance of Ivan Batiston, Julio Gonchorowski,Antonia Monteiro, Apolonio Rodrigues, and Raphael Xavier. At theINCRA office in Cascavel, Emilio Stachowski was generous in sharinghis time and resources. In Brasília, I am grateful for the help of ÁtilaRibeiro at IBAMA and Daianne Bezerra de Freitas and Marli dos ReisAlves Soares at ICMBio. I would also like to thank Maria Tereza JorgePádua for an enlightening interview.

xii Acknowledgments


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In Puerto Iguazú, the people at the APN-NEA – Fernanda Fabbio,Guillermo Gil, Andrés Bosso, Fabián Gatti, and Marcelo Cavicchia –

supported me in every way. Exceptional thanks go to Luciana Nicola,whose tenacity enabled me to conduct research at the Iguazú NationalPark archive. At the park, I enjoyed fruitful conversations with Daniel dela Torre, Justo Herrera, and Nancy Arizpe. In the town, GuillerminaHope, Osni Schreiner, and the late José Gorgues kindly shared theirstories. In Buenos Aires, most of my research was carried out at theAPN archives and library, and this was only possible thanks to thededication of Sergio Silva, Laura Staropoli, and Catalina Coali. SergioPedernera at the Patrimonio e Instituto Histórico in Buenos Aires alsooffered valuable help.I was lucky to have family support during the decade I spent researching

and writing this book. I am grateful to Érica and her family – Luís,Thomas, and Maria Clara, and to Dulce and Joceli, for their supportand for being part of what I am. A special thank-you to Heidi andRobert, whom I was lucky to encounter along this journey. I am alsoimmensely thankful to my wife, Robin, a pillar of love, support, andcompanionship. Finally, I dedicate this book to Olívia and Aurora, whoI hope will someday be inspired by this work.

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Note on Terminology and Orthography

Iguazu is a term of Tupi-Guarani origin meaning “big water,” “a greatamount of water,” or “abundance of water.” In Spanish it is spelledIguazú, with an acute accent on the final u. In Portuguese it was Iguassúuntil an orthographic reform in the 1950s changed it to its present form,Iguaçu. Iguazu was originally the name of the 1,300-kilometer-long riverthat serves as the boundary between Argentina and Brazil in its final 130kilometers before flowing into the mighty Paraná River. It is also the nameof the binational set of massive waterfalls that justified the creation of twonational parks in the 1930s, which are the topic of this book. Here, I choseto keep the modern Portuguese spelling “Iguaçu” for the Brazilian park,Iguaçu National Park (Parque Nacional do Iguaçu); the Spanish spelling“Iguazú” for the Argentine park, Iguazú National Park (Parque NacionalIguazú); and the English spelling “Iguazu” for geographical features suchas the Iguazu River and Iguazu Falls.

I also use the word “settler” to refer to the farmers who moved into theArgentine–Brazilian borderland throughout the twentieth century. Thesefarmers, the majority of whom were of European descent, identifythemselves as colonos in Brazil, which can be roughly translated as“members of a colony” (i.e., a colonization project). In Argentina, toa lesser extent, a similar group of people is referred to as pobladores –

“populators.” In Brazil, they are also “colonos” for government agenciesand in legislation, to such an extent that the Brazilian Congress even createda dia do colono (day of the settler) in 1968 to celebrate their role as frontierpioneers. The word “colono” acquires different meanings in other parts ofBrazil, but in the Brazilian South, where Iguaçu National Park is located, itinvariably refers to Brazilian migrants of European origin from other

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southern states who acquire land in frontier areas. Most “colonos” whomoved to the area between the Iguazu and the Paraná rivers between the1950s and1970s trace their origin to the Italian andGerman immigrantswhoarrived in Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, in the nineteenthcentury.“Poblador”has a similarmeaning across the border inArgentina.Toavoid switching back and forth between the Portuguese and Spanish versionsof the term, I chose to refer to all of these migrants as “settlers.”

Note on Terminology and Orthography xv


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map 0.1 Iguazú National Park, Argentina, and Iguaçu National Park, Brazil, c. 2020. Map by Frederico Freitas

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Documents

Nationalizing Nature · 2021. 1. 14. · 1930 s, Brazil and Argentina created some of their rst national parks around the massive Iguazu Falls, shared by the two countries. The parks